THE mother of a teenage thug whose identity was revealed by The Northern Echo said naming him had brought shame on her family.

But Paula Harp said she would always stand by her 16-year-old son Shaun McKerry, who on Friday was locked up for four years for robbing a village postmaster at knifepoint to get money to buy heroin.

Last year Paula, 32, pleaded with the courts to lock up her out-of-control son, who had been arrested 80 times since 1995, and appeared before magistrates five times in one week.

McKerry, dubbed Homing Pigeon Boy, served a series of sentences in young offenders' institutions before February's armed raid in his home village of Leeholme, near Bishop Auckland.

At exactly the same time as he carried out the raid, The Northern Echo won a landmark High Court battle for the right to reveal his identity.

His mother said yesterday: "Identifying Shaun was a bad thing, not for him but for the rest of his family who have to live with this.

"I know he has done wrong, but I am his mother. I love him and I will always stand by him.

"It was upsetting when he was locked away for such a long time and it was made harder by the fact that everyone now knows who he is.

"But all I can hope is that this spell in prison will change his ways and get back to being the boy we once knew.

"I really believe it is not too late for Shaun, and I hope he gets the right kind of help now.

"He is a well mannered, decent lad who really cares about me and his family and friends.

"Only one thing ruined him and that was drugs. It shows how much damage drugs can do, and it might be a warning to other young people."

But a man from Leeholme, who asked not to be named, said: "It's the best news I have had all year.

"The fact that he has been named and shamed doesn't matter around here because everybody knows only too well who he is.

"If there was ever any trouble, anything stolen, or any damage caused, you could bet that he would be at the bottom of it.

"The fact is that Leeholme will be a better place with him behind bars.